Derren Brown's chess trick – once more with feeling

4/8/2008 – A few years ago British magician, illusionist and mentalist Derren Brown performed a chess trick: he played against a group of very strong English players, many of them grandmasters, in a simultaneous exhibition and beat them. It is a well-known trick and was explained by Brown after the show. We reported on the experiment at the time – now you can watch it as a YouTube video.

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Derren Victor Brown, 37, is a British magician, psychological illusionist,
mentalist – and a skeptic of paranormal phenomena. He studied Law and
German at the University of Bristol, and during these studies attended a show
by hypnotist Martin Taylor, which inspired him to turn to illusion and hypnosis
as a career. He worked as a conjuror, practising the traditional skills of close-up
magic, and in 1996 started performing stage hypnosis shows. In 2000 he was commissioned
to do a pilot for his Channel 4 television series, Mind Control. He began his
television work with three sixty-minute specials over two years, which led up
to the six part series which incorporated new footage with the best of the hour
long shows.

Derren Brown states at the beginning of his "Trick of the Mind" programmes
that he achieves his results using a combination of "magic, suggestion,
psychology, misdirection and showmanship". Using his knowledge and skill
he appears to be able to predict and influence people's thoughts with subtle
suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical
signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking.

In his book Tricks of the Mind, Brown writes, "I am often dishonest in
my techniques, but always honest about my dishonesty. I happily admit cheating,
as it's all part of the game. I hope some of the fun for the viewer comes from
not knowing what's real and what isn't. I am an entertainer first and foremost,
and I am careful not to cross any moral line that would take me into manipulating
people's real-life decisions or belief systems."

The Chess Trick

A few years ago Derren Brown performed a chess trick, one well known to insiders:
he played against a group of strong players by secretly mirroring the moves
on different boards, essentially playing them against each other. We reported
on the experiment at the time. Now we have found a video of the event on
YouTube. It is well worth watching.

Derren Brown's simultaneous chess prank

The trick is not new. Alekhine and his twice world championship challenger
Bogoljubov are said to have been challenged separately to games of correspondence
chess at money odds. In effect the opponent, who had little chess skill, was
playing in neither game. He was simply passing on the moves of the players.
Since he had received money odds he ended with a net profit whoever won the
game.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!